KVAL
October 26th, 2014
Monday marks the beginning of a 30-day "cooling off" period between the federation and the University of Oregon administration.
GTFs, or graduate teaching fellows, are grad students who instruct in undergraduate courses. Federation President Joe Henry said the union is requesting a pay raise and paid leave.
After a vote, GTFF members agreed to go on strike if school administrators don't come up with a plan to meet their demands.
"We do not want to strike,” said Joe Henry, the president of the GTFF, “but we feel that we must if the needs of GTFs aren't met."
Last year, the U of O’s teaching fellows were paid an annual salary between $25,000 and $30,000.
"The numbers stated are based on a 1.0 FTE. Graduate school rules prohibit GTFs from working more than .49," said Thibaud Henin, GTFF Steward. "In practice, many departments pay their GTFs at a 0.2 or 0.4. What this means is that some GTFs make as little as $5,000 per year."
So far, the university has offered GTFF members a 5 percent raise for minimum graduate teaching fellow salaries for 2014, and a 4 percent raise for 2015.
But the union says that's not enough to cover the cost of living and close the pay gap between them and other part-time employees. They want 5.5 percent. “We would like a wage raise that keeps up with what the university's own financial aid department has said takes to live in Eugene," Henry said.